E3 2013: Sony's Knock-Out Blow

A review of Sony's opening salvo at the end of E3's first day.

This morning at E3, Microsoft did its best to assuage doubts over the
Xbox One's game-ownership and internet-connection policies
by showing a strong and not entirely predictable line-up for next-generation games that put the ball squarely back in Sony's court. This evening, Sony responded with some cool-looking games of its own – followed by a series of slow-motion punches to Xbox's groin. In eight years of covering video games I have never seen a conference that aimed so directly for the opponent's jugular. It was a targeted assault.

For the first hour or so, though, it was business as usual. Sony reiterated an enduring commitment to the PS3 with
Beyond: Two Souls
and The Last of Us
before ambling through its next-gen line-up at a leisurely pace, positioning Vita as the ideal companion to the upcoming PlayStation 4. We got to see the box
– which, to be honest, I couldn't get enormously excited about despite the several months of build-up. It was familiar territory: Drive Club, Infamous: Second Son,
Killzone: Shadow Falls, and
Knack
all made second appearances, alongside two new games: The Order: 1886, a steampunk-looking fantasy shooter set in 1800s London, and a new thing from Quantic Dream, The Dark Sorcerer, starring the old man with lovely eyes from February's tech demo – although that may or may not turn out to be a game.

It was when Sony brought out a representative selection of its indie developers that things started to get more interesting, especially when compared to this morning's Xbox One conference. Sony's commitment to new talent is evident in the amount of time dedicated to showing these games (and their creators) off on stage, from
Don't Starve
to Transistor. Self-publishing on the PlayStation 4 is going to be a huge deal for smaller developers, and the language Sony was employing - “richness”, “breadth”, “variety” - suggests that the company is well aware of that, and
will continue to actively court them.

“

In eight years of covering video games I have never seen a conference that aimed so directly for the opponent's jugular.

From there we moved on to the third-party developers: two huge surprises in the form of
Final Fantasy XV, formerly Versus 13 (which I never EVER thought we'd see again), and
Kingdom Hearts III, followed by gameplay demos of
Watch Dogs
and Assassin's Creed IV that went deeper than what we saw at Ubisoft's conference earlier in the day.

But the turning point of the conference was the first and most damaging of several body-blows to Microsoft, which came when Jack Tretton returned to stage and said without a trace of ambiguity that the PlayStation 4 will support lending, trading, reselling, and indeed playing your games on your console in pretty much the same way as we have been since they came on floppy discs. No DRM, no restrictions, no online requirements, and no authentication. If anyone still thought that this was a minor issue for gamers, the reaction to that news will surely have disavowed them of that assumption. In the conference centre, the room went madder than it would have if Naughty Dog had shown up with Uncharted 4.

From there, the attack became more and more targeted. After making it absolutely clear that you can trade, sell, and share PS4 games without restriction, Tretton added that disc-based games don't need to be connected online or check in for authentication – not every 24 hours, not ever.

All of this was exactly what gamers wanted to hear. The reaction was so overwhelmingly positive that Tretton could sneak in the revelation that you'll now
need to be a Plus subscriber to play online multiplayer
without anyone complaining. PlayStation Plus is squaring up more directly against Xbox Live now, and though it boasts a better rewards offering with its free games than Live, PSN's track record with cross-game voice chat and (most importantly) security puts it far behind Live at this point in time. This will be a significant battleground for the next generation, and Sony will need to shore up its online infrastructure to justify the price and support online multiplayer as well as Live.

“

Nobody would have expected Sony to undercut Microsoft on the price to such an extent.

Speaking of online multiplayer, Bungie's
Destiny
was a closing gameplay presentation that came across as a more serious Borderlands, a cross-platform sci-fi shooter that looks like it could give respawn's Xbox One exclusive Titanfall
a run for its money. But it did make me think: without the Xbox One's reliance on cloud-power, PS4 games might not be able to expand to the same scale that Xbox One games might be able to in the future, if Microsoft is to be believed. The phrase “persistent world” cropped up a lot in the earlier conference.

After
Destiny, though, there was the announcement of the PS4's price – which, at the time, felt like a knock-out blow.
$399, 399 euros, £349.
It's still a slightly raw deal for Europeans and Brits on the exchange rate front, but not to the same extent as Xbox One. Nobody would have expected Sony to undercut Microsoft to such an extent. God only knows what it's going to cost them in the beginning, but the audience's reaction to the announcement was unambiguous. It's a hugely popular price point for a next-generation console.

After the revelations of the last half-hour, it was easy to forget that this conference didn't add all that much to the PS4 line-up that was revealed in February. There were no really killer new exclusives from the franchises that PlayStation gamers already love, like God of War, LittleBigPlanet or (of course) Uncharted. Those will, no doubt, be coming, but it was disappointing not to see them teased in the same way that Halo was this morning.

Other than that, though, it's difficult to find much wrong with Sony's E3 showing .That conference was Sony setting out its principles: this is how you support independent developers, this is how you respect your customers, this is how you present your games and your console to the world. The games looked good, the box was nice, the price was right, but it was the attitude that really smacked us in the face tonight. Sony was saying: if you care about games like we do, you'll buy a PlayStation 4.

Right now, I think most gamers would agree.

Keza MacDonald is in charge of IGN's games coverage in the UK. You can follow her on IGN and Twitter.

Please stop. You sound like my mother when I was saying I wanted to sell my SNES to get a Playstation. I have played all the good Wii games. All 10 of them are still sitting on my shelf. The Virtual Console has plenty of great games on it, but I was excited to play them in the 80's and 90's. Now, I want more games like The Last of Us, Beyond: 2 Souls, Halo 5, GTAV, Destiny, a NEW Zelda, etc. If I want to play SNES games I will turn on my SNES.

It's the cost of convenience, my friend. Who seriously wants to wade through a storage shed to set up their old systems that could potentially ruin their more modern, high-definition TVs?

I mean, the only reason I'm holding onto my N64 now is because it's the ONLY console I have that can play GoldenEye 007. Sure, I could use an emulator, but I don't have any gamepads that I could use in conjunction with it. Even then, it's sitting under a bunch of old diplomas I got years ago because all my family seems to want to play now is on modern consoles.

I wouldn't mind paying $9-10 just so I could have the same software readily available so I don't have to spend hours looking for that old thing. That, plus no one really remembers how to use those old controllers anymore. Nintendo's designs have constantly been changing since inception. Think about it.

I suppose from Nintendo's point of view, they succeeded in cementing the Wii U as a Mario and Zelda box. I'll never buy a console for one or two games unless that console is very cheap (and the Wii U isn't that cheap). I'd much rather go to a friend's house to play Mario and Zelda if I really want to.

And there were almost no surprises. We already knew Smash Bros was coming and Mario and Mario Kart and Pokemon... there was never any "oh my god I never expected that WTFOMG amazing" moment for me.

It was just so dry and boring. They should've done a press conference because I almost fell asleep watching their Nintendo direct.

But Nintendo is getting Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed 4, Watch Dogs, Wonderful 101, Pikmin 3, X, Donkey Kong and Bayonetta 2. 5 of which are exclusive. I am not entirely disagreeing with you; yes another Mario, Mario Kart and Zelda are par for the course and underwhelming as far as being an E3 reveal from Nintendo. But it's not fair to say the system is a Mario and Zelda box. The most interesting games from the direct where Bayonetta 2 and X in my opinion. You are generalizing. It's like saying that the Xbone and PS4 are shooter boxes, because 75% of the emphasis was on shooting games. Obviously PS4 and Xbox One offer more than just shooting as Wii U offers more than Mario and Zelda.

I see what you're saying but I still stand by most of my earlier statements. If you look at the interview between Geoff Keighley and Reggie from Nintendo, you see how many times he goes on about how "you can only play Zelda, Mario and Donkey Kong on Nintendo...". He says it's all about the games games games games but he heavily relies on talking about Mario and Zelda. Mario and Zelda are so much a GIVEN on Nintendo systems that don't even NEED to market them and they would still sell well. Splinter Cell is basically a current gen game... the Assassin's Creed 4 on Wii U is probably going to be like the current gen version - same for Watch Dogs.

Pikmin is exciting I'll give you that but we've already heard about it a million times and they've already delayed it more than once. We already knew about Bayonetta and expected that to come sooner. People were hoping for a brand new Zelda but all we got was a HD Wind Waker. I love Zelda but if I really wanted to play it in HD, I've already played it at 1080p on a powerful PC using an emulator.

We did see a lot of shooters from X1 and PS4 but they have so much third party support that we never know what we're going to get with them. With Nintendo we always know we'e going to get a Mario... a Zelda... a Donkey Kong..

The problem with the Nintendo Direct was that 1) they announced a lot of stuff before the livestream via twitter etc. and ruined what could have been a great surprise (Super Smash Bros) 2) their new Mario game just looked like an upscaled version of Mario 3D on the 3DS. 3) the format of the livestream was dry, boring and uninspired.

Where is Reggie with his goofy one-liners like "My body is ready" etc? It all felt very disconnected for me. Aside from the mild excitement I got from seeing Smash Bros, there was nothing remotely exciting about Nintendo Direct this time.

I'm not generalising I'm just stating how I feel after considering what Nintendo has shown us over the last year up until and including this morning Direct livestream.

I agree with most of what you're saying. Nintendo seems...unaware. I'm not sure if there is some giant plan out there, but to sell the Wii U, they have to show why that tablet controller is needed. They need to upgrade the e-shop, and the fact is they need 3rd party support. When Capcom got into bed with the gamecube, thats when I bought the console. Right now, outside of Nintendo themselves, there is not much on the horizon, and why should anyone invest time and money if they don't see a great product?

Nah. Nintendo has been doing their own thing for years. They still dominate the handheld market and they know their customers. Nintendo has their agenda and they really don't change it too much just to match the market.

And they have been around for a long time. So I just let Nintendo do what it does. They always seem to come out decently.

Yeh Megaman was pretty crazy but... Nintendo actually ruined that by having a god-awful stream. My stream cut out and then I saw people shouting MEGAMAN MEGAMAN in the social comments section and it ruined the surprise!

Xenoblade could be good but they didn't show much of it to be fair. Bayonetta well we've already seen that a million times they just need to release. Same with Pikmin 3 don't dwell on it you've already delayed it enough!

The Wii U can present stuff other than egoshooters and rpgs... but it doesn't really have any egoshooters.. or rpgs.. If the argument was "they have loads of shooters and rpgs.. PLUS all of these other great games" then I'd agree with you but really they don't have a lot apart from those 3 games you mentioned.

For me, they really needed to show a proper new Wii U Zelda (akin to the tech demo they showed last year) and then people would have gone absolutely mental. Zelda is the kind of massively epic game that people (who are not necessarily huge Nintendo fans) would get really excited for.

Don't worry I won't be buying an Xbox One anytime soon as long as they maintain those used game and DRM policies lol. 3rd party publishers might end up restricting stuff on PS4 anyway but at least my PS4 won't self-destruct after 24 hours lol.

"Bayonetta well we've already seen that a million times they just need to release." <--????

This was the first time they showed gameplay of Bayonetta, so now you're just talking out of your rear end. Look, I get it, you were underwhelmed, but please don't spin the facts. I was actually blown away by the Bayonetta footage. It looks awesome. You are trying to underplay that games impact. And to say we don't know very much about the new Xeno is unfair. We don't know very much about the majority of games shown at E3. At least all of the Wii U and 3DS games showed actual gameplay, which is more than I can say for several Xbox One and PS4 games shown at their conferences. I think you are letting some personal bias enter into your argument. It wasn't Nintendo's best E3, but it was enough for me to get excited. It's okay that you disagree, but some of your points are not valid.

About Nintendo showing actual gameplay.... Of course, do you realize how much longer it takes to make something like Final Fantasy XV or Kingdom Hearts 3 as opposed to just about any Nintendo game at this point?

Their textures are larger, they have more textures because they have larger worlds, they have a massive amount of maps that can take months to perfect, they have models that have ridiculously high polygon counts at every corner. Plus FFXV at least is somewhat fresh, these models and maps and all of these things had to be made from scratch.

Games like Mario take less work, they already know how Mario needs to look, they have already established the world Mario is in, all it takes for them is to jump in and get to it. There is hardly a need to create fresh ideas.

This isn't to say Nintendo sucks but it does not take them as long to have their games prepared. RPG's by design already take longer...

Agree... Quite frankly Xbox was never needed, PC did everything it ever did better. Sony is the experimental one that brings us the fresher ideas and the rgps we all love. Nintendo gives us our favorite classics and keeps them alive generation to generation.

Not trying to hate on the XBOX but it's Exclusives have always been games that were previously perfectly fine on PC, I'd even say they'd perform better if the current market was more intelligent with PC's which would be the case. Only reason the XBOX is needed is because gamers are becoming too lazy or are not willing to invest the time to learn about computers.

I guess I'm the only one that thought Zenoblade sucked? It did. Really. Terrible story, which is the only reason I would have pressed on. I am so glad I just stopped playing the terrible game and watched the cutscenes online, which really made me sooooooo mfing glad I didn't waste any more time on that f'ing stupid story. OMFG! What a waste of time! I think I'll just keep my 360 and PS3 for the foreseeable future. Sigh. Only thing that sucks worse than the One's online BS is the PS4's game lineup. Ugh! No hurry on any of those "great" exclusives which suck balls!

I think I'll buy PS4 at launch for Infamous, Drive Club and Killzone. I never played KZ 2 or 3 but I loved the original Killzone on PS2.

As for the Wii U, that Nintendo Direct was BORING until they announced Megaman for Smash Bros. Even then it wasn't THAT good. Come on, they announced an extra character for a game we already knew about.

Unless the price drops to about £200-£220, there aren't anywhere near enough games I want to buy for the Wii U. That new Mario just looked like Mario 3DS in high res. They had Mario Sunshine.. and then Galaxy 1 and 2. Those were totally new and innovative ideas. Now all they can do is copy from 3DS?

I will like save up my money for both WiiU and PS4 since there will be many games that interest me such as Kingdom Hearts 3 and for WiiU Xenoblade 2. These games won't be M (which means I have a larger chance of playing them) and they are rpgs which is one of my favorite genres in games.

Please stop. You sound like my mother when I was saying I wanted to sell my SNES to get a Playstation. I have played all the good Wii games. All 10 of them are still sitting on my shelf. The Virtual Console has plenty of great games on it, but I was excited to play them in the 80's and 90's. Now, I want more games like The Last of Us, Beyond: 2 Souls, Halo 5, GTAV, Destiny, a NEW Zelda, etc. If I want to play SNES games I will turn on my SNES.

It's the cost of convenience, my friend. Who seriously wants to wade through a storage shed to set up their old systems that could potentially ruin their more modern, high-definition TVs?

I mean, the only reason I'm holding onto my N64 now is because it's the ONLY console I have that can play GoldenEye 007. Sure, I could use an emulator, but I don't have any gamepads that I could use in conjunction with it. Even then, it's sitting under a bunch of old diplomas I got years ago because all my family seems to want to play now is on modern consoles.

I wouldn't mind paying $9-10 just so I could have the same software readily available so I don't have to spend hours looking for that old thing. That, plus no one really remembers how to use those old controllers anymore. Nintendo's designs have constantly been changing since inception. Think about it.

I suppose from Nintendo's point of view, they succeeded in cementing the Wii U as a Mario and Zelda box. I'll never buy a console for one or two games unless that console is very cheap (and the Wii U isn't that cheap). I'd much rather go to a friend's house to play Mario and Zelda if I really want to.

And there were almost no surprises. We already knew Smash Bros was coming and Mario and Mario Kart and Pokemon... there was never any "oh my god I never expected that WTFOMG amazing" moment for me.

It was just so dry and boring. They should've done a press conference because I almost fell asleep watching their Nintendo direct.

But Nintendo is getting Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed 4, Watch Dogs, Wonderful 101, Pikmin 3, X, Donkey Kong and Bayonetta 2. 5 of which are exclusive. I am not entirely disagreeing with you; yes another Mario, Mario Kart and Zelda are par for the course and underwhelming as far as being an E3 reveal from Nintendo. But it's not fair to say the system is a Mario and Zelda box. The most interesting games from the direct where Bayonetta 2 and X in my opinion. You are generalizing. It's like saying that the Xbone and PS4 are shooter boxes, because 75% of the emphasis was on shooting games. Obviously PS4 and Xbox One offer more than just shooting as Wii U offers more than Mario and Zelda.

I see what you're saying but I still stand by most of my earlier statements. If you look at the interview between Geoff Keighley and Reggie from Nintendo, you see how many times he goes on about how "you can only play Zelda, Mario and Donkey Kong on Nintendo...". He says it's all about the games games games games but he heavily relies on talking about Mario and Zelda. Mario and Zelda are so much a GIVEN on Nintendo systems that don't even NEED to market them and they would still sell well. Splinter Cell is basically a current gen game... the Assassin's Creed 4 on Wii U is probably going to be like the current gen version - same for Watch Dogs.

Pikmin is exciting I'll give you that but we've already heard about it a million times and they've already delayed it more than once. We already knew about Bayonetta and expected that to come sooner. People were hoping for a brand new Zelda but all we got was a HD Wind Waker. I love Zelda but if I really wanted to play it in HD, I've already played it at 1080p on a powerful PC using an emulator.

We did see a lot of shooters from X1 and PS4 but they have so much third party support that we never know what we're going to get with them. With Nintendo we always know we'e going to get a Mario... a Zelda... a Donkey Kong..

The problem with the Nintendo Direct was that 1) they announced a lot of stuff before the livestream via twitter etc. and ruined what could have been a great surprise (Super Smash Bros) 2) their new Mario game just looked like an upscaled version of Mario 3D on the 3DS. 3) the format of the livestream was dry, boring and uninspired.

Where is Reggie with his goofy one-liners like "My body is ready" etc? It all felt very disconnected for me. Aside from the mild excitement I got from seeing Smash Bros, there was nothing remotely exciting about Nintendo Direct this time.

I'm not generalising I'm just stating how I feel after considering what Nintendo has shown us over the last year up until and including this morning Direct livestream.

I agree with most of what you're saying. Nintendo seems...unaware. I'm not sure if there is some giant plan out there, but to sell the Wii U, they have to show why that tablet controller is needed. They need to upgrade the e-shop, and the fact is they need 3rd party support. When Capcom got into bed with the gamecube, thats when I bought the console. Right now, outside of Nintendo themselves, there is not much on the horizon, and why should anyone invest time and money if they don't see a great product?

Nah. Nintendo has been doing their own thing for years. They still dominate the handheld market and they know their customers. Nintendo has their agenda and they really don't change it too much just to match the market.

And they have been around for a long time. So I just let Nintendo do what it does. They always seem to come out decently.